Growing Doubts: Is Evolutionary Theory Valid?

As we gaze enraptured into a marine pool—seeing here a sea anemone, its iridescent blue-green tentacles rhythmically searching for food, and there the ludicrous side-winding hermit crab, his home a borrowed sea snail shell—we suddenly sense that natural selection explains too much! The brown rockweed; green, red, and coralline algae; sun, blood and purple starfish; sea urchins; sand dollars; many richly beautiful red beard sponges—surely the sea tides, daily giving this pool in the craggy rock its place in the sun for an hour or so, could not, by selection, develop such marvelous diversity as this.

Elliott G. Watson, British zoologist writing for The Saturday Evening Post (“Hidden Heart of Nature,” May 27, 1961, pp. 32–33), lists four examples of life histories that orthodox evolution theories simply cannot explain. We mention only the coral reef inhabiting crab whose claws are so small as to be useless as weap-one. But the backward curving teeth of the claws grasp the slippery bodies of small anemones and detach them carefully and without injury from the rocks. Thus held close to the mouth of the pirate crab, the anemones continue to spread their tentacles and to capture small creatures, which the crab, with his free front pair of walking legs, removes as dainty tidbits. Those he dislikes he leaves for the anemones, which are finally released unharmed. Are these adaptations to be explained by chance mutations? Did a chance modification of the claws prompt some ancestral crab to detach an anemone for the mere fun of the thing and by chance hold it near its mouth? If so, we must then assume that the crab passed on to its offspring this behavior tendency, and through natural selection the crab species thus developed their close association with various anemones—the species differing, of course, (to make the problem more complex) for each specie of pirate crab. Such process, Watson says, reason simply cannot accept, and I agree with him.

Experimenting With Mutations

Let us briefly consider these mutations. It is currently believed that they are caused mostly by cosmic radiation (B. Peters, “Progress in Cosmic Ray Research Since 1947,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 64, Feb. 1959, p. 156), whereupon natural selection, according to Neo-Darwinian theory, leads to new species. My own work on neutron-induced variations in roses describes a technique by which from 50 radiated buds of Queen Elizabeth we can induce more mutations than could hitherto be found by a lifetime of searching among several million rose plants grown annually from non-radiated buds (“Neutron-Induced Variation of Roses,” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, Vol. 13, No. 1:2–6, 1960). Without exception, all mutations so induced were found to be defective or weaker than Queen Elizabeth. Some, such as a three-foot dwarf type, were horticulturally desirable novelties since gardeners sometimes find the seven to eight foot height of the Queen Elizabeth objectionable. Biologically, however, there is no competition with the Queen Elizabeth.

After reviewing the thousands of “naturally” occurring mutations found in that biological Cinderella, the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), T. Dobzhansky admits that only a few have greater capability of living or viability than normal, and these only at temperatures higher than normal for the species! Yet from such questionably favorable cases he still argues for evolution (Genetics and the Origin of Species, Columbia University Press, 1951, chap. on mutations).

R. B. Goldschmidt devotes a whole book to showing how contrary to fact such a concept really is (The Material Basis of Evolution, Pageant Press, 1960). Still he seems to accept evolution as proven by geology, embryology, and taxonomy, and argues for some rather mysterious large-scale “macro-evolution” during embryonic development, new genera, and even new families suddenly arising as a result of segmental alteration of the chromosomes. Incidentally, nothing of this sort has ever been observed, even on a species level.

As K. Patau has shown, even mutations having a 1 per cent survival advantage increase in frequency from .01 to .1 per cent of the population only after 900,230 generations (“Die Mathematische Analyse der Evolutions Vorgange,” Zeitschrift für Inductive Abstamungs und Vererbungslehre, Vol. 76:220–228). Another 100,511 generations are needed to increase the frequency to 100 per cent. Certainly the time needed for natural selection to effect a change in a large population is enormous even geologically speaking. That is why Sir Charles Lyell’s concept of slow change by presently acting causes is so necessary for any concept of general evolution. We have all been taught the sequence of raindrops, rivulets, brooks, streams, and finally rivers that, carrying the sediments to continental shelves, in time wear away the mountains to almost level plains. Undoubtedly some of our landscape does result from this infinitesimally slow action. Among the well-rounded hills of England, near Downs, the home of Darwin, one can almost see such a process in operation as he watches the well-ordered flow of streams into the slow-moving Thames. But can the sedimentary rocks of the world and their abundance of fossils really be explained in this way? Let us remember that any demonstration of substantial world-wide catastrophe breaks the slow time sequence so necessary for evolution. Daily we live under threat of sudden destruction by nuclear energy bombs. Could this fact perhaps be influencing scientists to reconsider catastrophism as the possible explanation of our planet’s scarred features?

Ivan T. Sanderson writes a fascinating story of the “Riddle of the Frozen Giants” (The Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 16, 1960, p. 83). “Here is a really shocking (for our previous, Uniformitarian, way of thinking) picture,” he says. “Vast herds of enormous well-fed mammoths not specifically designed for extreme cold, placidly feeding in sunny pasture delicately plucking flowering buttercups at a temperature in which we would probably not even have needed a coat. Suddenly they were all killed without any visible sign of violence and before they could so much as swallow a last mouthful of food, and then were quick frozen so rapidly that every cell of their bodies is perfectly preserved despite their great bulk and high temperature.”

What, we may well ask, could possibly do this? Sanderson’s explanation is that at least 20 or more volcanoes erupted simultaneously due to long cracks suddenly forming from built-up tension in the outer mantle. Coincident with these eruptions occurred great lava flows. The sudden extrusion of dust and gases formed monstrous amounts of rain and snow and cut out sunlight for days, weeks, and even months in some areas. Cold fronts of great length were built up that caused continental floods of vast proportions and tidal waves. The gases shot high into outer space, cooled to—150 degrees Fahrenheit, and suddenly descending, instantly froze the mammoths. Sanderson’s postulation of the rains, tidal wave action, and continental floods makes the usual interpretation of the Genesis flood seem a tame affair by comparison.

But one might say this burial of mammoths is most unusual; surely most fossils were deposited by burial in sediments accumulated slowly as are present-day alluvial fans and offshore continental shelves. While it may come as a shock to followers of the usual geological discussions, actually the opposite is true—almost all of the fossils, by their very manner of perfect preservation, clearly show a sudden burial. M. Brangersma Sanders (“Mass Mortality in the Sea, Marine Ecology, and Paleoecology,” chap. 29, Geological Society of America Memoir 67, 1957, pp. 972, 973), William J. Miller (An Introduction to Historical Geology, 6th ed., Van Nostrand, 1952, p. 12), and Ph. H. Kuenen (Notes from Marine Biology, Wiley, pp. 215, 217) all agree that very few fossils are now formed, and these only under catastrophic conditions.

Simple And Complex Forms

Just what geologic finds then do so many scientists consider as evidence for evolution? Stripped of technical words, the answer is this: Simple marine types of plants and animals are usually found at the bottom of the sedimentary or water-deposited rock formations and lying on the granitic rocks of the earth’s outer mantle. The more complex backboned land animals and flowering plants are toward the top. Furthermore, except in areas such as the great swath of muck stretching around the Arctic Ocean, the formations have a characteristic orderly assemblage of plants and animals instead of being jumbled in some hopeless mess. The actual percentage of area showing this progressive order from the simple to the complex is surprisingly small. Indeed, formations with very complex forms of life are often found resting directly on the basic granites. Furthermore, I have in my own files a list of over 500 cases that attest to a reverse order, that is, simple forms of life resting on top of more advanced types.

It is assumed that in the sedimentary rock layers graded 1, 2, 3, and 4 in complexity, breaking (faulting) occurred followed by the uplift and thrusting of those on one side over those which remained in place; the resulting order of rock layers then became 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 (2, 3, 4). Later erosion presumably removed all traces of 2, 3, and 4!

The gloriously beautiful Glacier National Park is one such case. Ever since my first visit there in 1936, this majestic area of vari-colored limestone mountains and clear, deep lakes in the valleys of grey-black shale, has fascinated me. These mountains containing only simple kinds of fossilized algal clusters were supposedly thrust over the shales which are classified as Cretaceous because they contain more advanced fossil types such as flowering trees, ammonites, and fishes. In 1957, Ray Siers of Chief Mountain Ranch, Dr. J. Hines, and I drove about 30 miles east of Many Glacier Hotel to the base of Chief Mountain and located the contact line of the upper limestone mountain formation lying on the Cretaceous shale. Dr. Hines and Siers climbed to the top finding only limestone. What had become of 2, 3, and 4 (the Cretaceous shale)?

As I wrote Professor Henry M. Morris: “After careful observation, I am convinced George McCready Price is even more right than he thought: at the actual contact lines, very thin layers of shale showing no evidence of grinding or sliding action were always present. Furthermore, these were cemented to the upper Altyn limestone (cf. George McCready Price, The New Geology, Pacific Press, 1923).

Careful field study during many vacations since 1936 has convinced me that the assumed thrust faults are purely imaginary. The transition layers above the contact line clearly indicate deposition of the limestone formations on the underlying distorted shales. Many well-meaning pastors and teachers have pictured the Genesis flood as a rather mild local affair limited in its destruction to the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. As John C. Whitcomb says, careful study of Genesis 6–9 indicates it was world-wide and violent in action (Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood, Presbyterian Publishing, 1961, chap. 1). A number of geologists such as Clifford L. Burdick (Streamlining Stratigraphy, The Forum, published by the Society for the Study of Natural Sciences, Glendale Academy Press, 1948, Vol. II, pp. 121–130) and Richard M. Ritland (Ph.D. of Harvard, now working with Dr. Frank Marsh at Berrien Springs, Mich.) agree with Morris that most of the sedimentary rocks and many of the great lava flows as well as the submerged mountain regions now being explored under the ocean are the result of this great catastrophe. The after-effects lasted for thousands of years, and resulted in more lava flows; in repeated burial of forests such as in the Amethyst area of Yellowstone National Park; in worldwide glaciation; in interior lakes such as Lahonton, and in vast alluvial fans almost covering mountain peaks in the great southwest desert of the United States.

Other arguments for evolution include the idea that the embryo, as it grows into an adult, retraces the various evolutionary stages. As stated by Haeckel, “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” But Cyril B. Courvelle, neural surgeon of White Memorial Hospital, Los Angeles, shows that the embryos of even closely allied species use cells and tissues from various and different sources (“The Recapitulation Theory and Casual Significance of Parallelism,” Bulletin of Deluge Geology, Vol. 1, No. 2 and Vol. 2, No. 1, Collegiate Press, Arlington, California). This fact destroys any hope of tracing presumed evolutionary ancestry since the organizers cut directly across the lines of theoretical family trees. There are, for example, alternating arches and furrows on the neck of the human embryo which are claimed to resemble gill slits of a fish. But this relationship is questionable since the first of the four arches develops into the lower jaw in man, but not in the fish. The second arch forms man’s middle and outer ear which the fish does not even have. Actually, gills are never formed. While Bradley Patten accepts recapitulation in his standard textbook of embryology for medical students, he admits this, and observes, “Although the tissue closing the gill clefts reduces to a thin membrane consisting of a layer of internal (entoderm) and external (extoderm) tissue with no intervening mesoderm, this membrane rarely disappears altogether” (Human Embryology, Blakiston, 1953, p. 460).

In its development the embryo follows the principle of least action; it proceeds as directly as possible and with no waste of material to the construction of the various organs. It is interesting that Patten credits Wilhelm His with laying the foundations of modern embryology and in his discussion of the historic development of this branch of science does not even mention Haeckel. Wilhelm His clearly perceived that similarity in form did not signify ancestry, a conclusion strengthened by modern experimental embryology.

Much has been made of the so-called tail in the human embryo. The late Douglas Dewar, British ornithologist, concluded that the proto-vertebra behind the region of the leg buds fuse to become the os coccyx or tail bone. This is soon bent forward and serves for the attachment of muscles; it is therefore not an ancestral relic but a designed structure (More Difficulties of the Evolution Theory, Thynne, 1938, pp. 34, 35). The fact that the tail is thus curved enables man to sit without discomfort—a rather important consideration in recent American living!

In Support Of Creationism

Patten discusses the primitive streak as a growth center which pushes cells into the growing body, but which never becomes larger itself. The head end of the embryo is always precocious in differentiation, something one would hardly expect if the embryo recapitulated its presumed ancestors who had brains consisting only of paired nerve ganglia! Quite obviously the regulatory mechanism of the embryo is working toward a predetermined goal or template and so the head is developed first to give time for the intricate brain development. Actually, embryo development favors the special creation theory.

Oddly enough, not the faintest trace of recapitulation is found in plants. The rose is rather highly placed in the plant kingdom. Yet its embryonic development shows no trace of the presumed evolution from algae through liverworts, mosses, and ferns to flowering plants.

From the creational viewpoint, by classifying plants and animals into species, genera, and families, we attempt to understand which ones belong together by virtue of having the most genes in common. On the basis of economy of effort, a wise Creator would certainly use the same genes from a common stockpile, so to speak, whenever the same form or function was to be achieved. Thus we have the same gene pattern of flower color inheritance in such widely separated species as the carnation (family Caryophyllaceae) and the rose (family Rosaceae) (W. E. Lammerts, “Inheritance of Magenta Color in Roses,” American Rose Annual, 1960, pp. 119–125). The grouping of such genera as the apple, pear, strawberry, and peach into the rose family merely means that more genes are possessed in common by species in these genera, than are shared for example by a species in the genus Rosa and one in the genus Geranium. One cannot infer descent from a common ancestor any more logically than one can assume the evolution of a complex tinker toy from a simple one. All forms simply came from the same large set of tinker toy units.

Boundaries Of Variability

Quite obviously, to associate the ability of species and varieties to change as they spread over the surface of the earth with evolution is to push this feature of variability out of all proportion. The inability of older naturalists like Darwin to evaluate this variability potential of special and varieties properly and thus their mistaking it for evolution or change of one species into another are quite understandable. After all, they had no clear concept of genetics and even set up genetic postulates such as pangenesis, which is at complete variance with what we now know to take place. Indeed, the continued interest and belief of many modern biologists in evolution, at least in some modified form, is puzzling, since the facts of genetic variability, cytology, and mutation so unmistakably show that species and varieties have such clearly defined boundries of variability. In his Studies in Creationism (Review and Herald Publishing Company, 1950) Frank L. Marsh discusses these boundaries from the viewpoint of creationism. He argues rather convincingly that while some types of species were created monotypic, that is, capable of very little variability (a classic example is the shellfish, Lingula), others, like the rose, were created polytypic, that is, having a high variability potential.

The idea of evolution has had a dulling effect on the minds and work of many younger and less imaginative plant and animal breeders; the very concept that changes require millions of years tends to make one feel that little can be accomplished in just one lifetime. Actually plant breeding experience shows that within the limits of variability possible for a given species, change can be effected quite rapidly. From the practical point of view, however, we must always recognize that once the all-wise Creator’s predetermined limits of variation have been reached, any attempts for further progress are a waste of time.

Many younger scientists tend to accept creationism and catastrophism. In my own small circle of personal contacts are at least 25 creationists. One of the older experienced pioneers, the eminent microbiologist Rene Dubos, has little good to say of evolution; he maintains it provides no answers to questions concerning the development of life (The Dreams of Reason, Science and Utopia, Columbia University Press, 1961). Heribert Nilsson, the late Director of the Botanical Institute of Lund, Sweden, is even more emphatic in his conclusions, as judged by his recently published Synthetische Artbildung (Verlag, OWH Gleerup, 1953). In this two-volume 1130-page book he reports on his 30 years of work. Then he asks: “Has there really been an evolution? Are proofs of its occurrence tenable? After a detailed comprehensive review of facts, we have been forced to give the answer, No!”

Since we are made in God’s image, perhaps we shall learn how he created the marvelous physical universe with its interesting plants and animals. As we are blessed with more knowledge, we may even be able to “make” that metropolis of activity called a “simple” cell. Should such wisdom and privilege ever be granted to man, it goes without saying that the steps involved will be so intricate as to make the wonders of a Swiss watch seem but the work of a child. And surely such “making” of life would not imply in the least that the intricately arranged neutrons, protons, neutrinos, electrons, and other physical units could ever have assembled themselves spontaneously.

We are now beginning to unravel the code and to learn just how the gene works through desoxyribosenucleic acid (D.N.A.) and with its partner ribosenucleic acid (R.N.A.). The conversion of inert chemicals into living units of activity as related in Genesis 1:11 (“Let the earth bring forth”) may not be impossible at all. It may well be achieved by precise knowledge of the chemical nature of these complex helically arranged molecules. Our increasing comprehension of God’s method in assembling these intricate patterns would hardly lead us to substantiate the naïve implication of evolution that they construct and arrange themselves. Instead this expanding discovery and knowledge should elicit from us an ever growing sense of awe and reverence for God’s infinite wisdom.

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